6 items
The chunky skate shoe whose star-and-DC logo got stickered onto every 2000s binder. Damon Way and Ken Block launched it in 1994 as the footwear arm of their Droors Clothing, Danny Way and Rob Dyrdek wore it pro, Quiksilver paid $87 million for it in 2004, and then Block's Gymkhana videos, in The Drive's words, changed car videos forever.
MTV's notorious stunt-and-prank show, in which a crew of grown men hurt themselves for your entertainment. Premiering on October 1, 2000, it strung together shopping-cart crashes, ill-advised dares, and gross-out gags performed by Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, and the rest of the gang. Wrapped in stern on-screen warnings not to try any of it at home, it was appointment viewing for a generation of teenagers — and the launchpad for a movie franchise that's still going.
Three voices trading off one bratty anthem — "storming through the party like my name was El Niño." It ruled MTV and every skate video in 2001, went 2× Platinum, and the band never even meant for it to be a single.
Miniature fingerboards the size of trading cards that let you do tricks on your desk. Tech Deck's genius move was licensing graphics from real skate brands like Birdhouse and World Industries, turning a novelty into a collecting frenzy — and a classroom contraband item teachers confiscated by the drawerful.
Activision and Neversoft's skateboarding game, first released in 1999, about chaining tricks into massive combos and collecting the letters S-K-A-T-E across increasingly iconic venues. The punk, ska, and hip-hop soundtrack defined the era. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (2000) is widely considered the series' peak and one of the best games ever made.
ESPN's made-for-TV Olympics of skateboarding, BMX, motocross, and snowboarding. It started as the Extreme Games in Rhode Island in 1995, got its one-letter name in 1996, and became the place where Tony Hawk landed the 900 and Travis Pastrana the double backflip.